Port Moody Coun. Mike Clay is settling in to his new title - for now it's still mayor-elect - and says he's looking forward to working with the new city council.
"So far, I'm enjoying it," Clay joked of his new role. "It was a little bit surreal when everything wrapped up and it started to sink in."
Clay has spent the last six years as a city councillor and, after a brief adjustment period, he doesn't foresee many glitches in shifting to the mayor's office, where Joe Trasolini has held court for the last 12 years.
"He guided the city through a particular period of really rapid growth and development, and I think he and the crew that worked with him were very good at managing that phase of the city," Clay said.
"Now we're at a slightly different phase of doing things on a smaller scale."
One of the first things Clay plans to tackle is getting the new council together to see where there is agreement on issues and where different points of view need to be accommodated.
And if the campaign literature is any indication, one area all the elected candidates agreed on was opening the lines of communication with the Evergreen Line project team and TransLink.
"We have to start the conversation now instead of waiting until next year when they're banging on the door with a backhoe," Clay said.
Returning incumbent Coun. Diana Dilworth said the city needs to look proactively at the implications of the Evergreen Line and make plans ahead of time. "First and foremost we need to work on developing our strategic plan for the term, and hire a city manager," she added. Dilworth also confirmed she'll stay on council to see those plans materialize; she has made two failed bids to win a federal seat with the Conservatives but says with her new job at Pacific Coast Terminals, she's committed to staying in Port Moody for the long haul.
Fellow incumbent Coun. Gerry Nuttall is back for a third term, saying he wanted to be part of the changes coming to Port Moody with the Evergreen Line. "We have to come up with a vision for that corridor that corresponds to what people living there want, what the businesses there want," he said.
STEEP LEARNING CURVE FOR POMO ROOKIES
Rookie city councillors Zoe Royer, Rick Glumac and Rosemary Small have a steep learning curve ahead, Nuttall added, but staff and the rest of council will be helping to get them up to speed quickly.
Royer said a top priority for council will be tweaking the official community plan - not reopening it entirely - to make plans for Evergreen.
"The budget and staff recruitment are high priorities for council but what we need is immediate action on engaging with the Evergreen Line team," she said.
"We want to know what they will do to protect Port Moody business owners as well as the community from total gridlock."
Official election results released by the city Tuesday afternoon showed Clay dropped a few votes from Saturday evening's numbers, from 3,154 down to 3,112. Council candidate Barbara Junker, who lost to Rosemary Small by just 40 votes, also dropped four votes to finish with 1,645.
Chief elections officer Colleen Rohde said the deadline to apply for a recount of ballots is Nov. 28.
THE RESULTS
A bullet [ ] denotes incumbent):
MAYOR
Mike Clay - 3,112
Robert Simons - 2,019
Katie Kickbush - 321
COUNCIL
Diana Dilworth - 2,954
Bob Elliott - 2,519
Rick Glumac - 2,502
Gerry Nuttall - 2,482
Zoe Royer - 1,919
Rosemary Small - 1,689
Barbara Junker - 1,645
Julie Whitworth - 1,485
Nancy Owens - 1,343
Jason Hulbert - 1,390
Shane Kennedy - 1,384
Jimmy Malamas - 1,293
Robert Vagramov - 962
Kevin Hagglund - 863
George Broderick - 627
Lola Oduwole - 645
Sylvia Richardson - 640
Rebecca Helps - 579
Tom Bell - 497
Dan Kirchner - 494
